[swift-evolution] SE-184 Improved Pointers

[Andrew Trick]

> On Aug 19, 2017, at 6:16 PM, Taylor Swift <kelvin13ma at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> What you’re describing is basically an earlier version of the proposal which had a slightly weaker precondition (source >= destination) than yours (source == destination). That one basically ignored the Sequence methods at the expense of greater API surface area.

The Sequence methods don’t provide the simpler, more convenient form of initialization/deinitialization that I thought you wanted. I see two reasonable options.

1. Don’t provide any new buffer initialization/deinitialization convenience. i.e. drop UsafeMutableBufferPointer moveInitialize, moveAssign, and deinitialize from your proposal.

2. Provide the full set of convenience methods: initialize, assign, moveInitialize, and moveAssign assuming self.count==source.count. And provide deinitialize() to be used only in conjunction with those new initializers.

The question is really whether those new methods are going to significantly simplify your code. If not, #1 is the conservative choice. Don't provide convenience which could be misused. Put off solving that problem until we can design a new move-only buffer type that tracks partially initialized state.

-Andy 

> On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 9:08 PM, Andrew Trick <atrick at apple.com <mailto:atrick at apple.com>> wrote:
> 
>> On Aug 19, 2017, at 6:03 PM, Taylor Swift <kelvin13ma at gmail.com <mailto:kelvin13ma at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 8:52 PM, Andrew Trick <atrick at apple.com <mailto:atrick at apple.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The problem is I would expect to be able to safely call deinitialize() and friends after calling initialize(from:). If Element is a class type and initialize doesn’t fill the entire buffer range, calling deinitialize() will crash. That being said, since copy(from:bytes:) and copyBytes(from:) don’t do any initialization and have no direct counterparts in UnsafeMutableBufferPointer, it’s okay if they have different behavior than the other methods.
>>> 
>>> You astutely pointed out that the UnsafeMutableBufferPointer.deinitialize() method is dangerous, and I asked you to add a warning to its comments. However, given the danger, I think we need to justify adding the method to begin with. Are there real use cases that greatly benefit from it?
>>> 
>>> I agree that’s a problem, which is why i was iffy on supporting partial initialization to begin with. The use case is for things like growing collections where you have to periodically move to larger storage. However, deinitialize is no more dangerous than moveInitialize, assign(repeating:count:), or moveAssign; they all deinitialize at least one entire buffer. If deinitialize is to be omitted, so must a majority of the unsafe pointer API.
>> 
>> Here's an alternative. Impose the precondition(source.count == self.count) to the following UnsafeMutableBufferPointer convenience methods that you propose adding:
>> 
>> +++ func assign(from:UnsafeBufferPointer<Element>)
>> +++ func assign(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
>> +++ func moveAssign(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
>> +++ func moveInitialize(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
>> +++ func initialize(from:UnsafeBufferPointer<Element>)
>> +++ func initialize(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
>> 
>> I don't that introduces any behavior that is inconsistent with other methods. `copyBytes` is a totally different thing that only works on trivial types. The currently dominant use case for UnsafeBufferPointer, partially initialized backing store, does not need to use your new convenience methods. It can continue dropping down to pointer+count style initialization/deinitialization.
>> 
>> -Andy
>>  
>> the latest draft does not have assign(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>) or  initialize(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>), it uses the generic Sequence methods that are already there that do not require that precondition.
> 
> Sorry, I was pasting from your original proposal. Here are the relevant methods from the latest draft:
> 
> https://github.com/kelvin13/swift-evolution/blob/1b7738513c00388b8de3b09769eab773539be386/proposals/0184-improved-pointers.md <https://github.com/kelvin13/swift-evolution/blob/1b7738513c00388b8de3b09769eab773539be386/proposals/0184-improved-pointers.md>
> 
> +++ func moveInitialize(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
> +++ func moveAssign(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
> 
> But with the precondition, the `assign` method could be reasonably added back, right?
> +++ func assign(from:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Element>)
> 
> Likewise, I don’t have a problem with initialize(from: UnsafeBufferPointer) where self.count==source.count. The Sequence initializer is different. It’s designed for the Array use case and forces the caller to deal with partial initialization. 
> 
> UnsafeMutableRawBufferPointer.moveInitializeMemory on the other hand probably doesn't need that precondition since there's no way to deinitialize. It just needs clear comments.
> 
> -Andy
> 

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